We now know there are at least three ironclad Super Bowl truths: if your last name is Manning you have a good shot to go to Disney World, someone will do something "shocking" at halftime and if you want a buzzworthy Super Bowl ad be sure that it stars a dog. Or a baby.
The first two were proven easily during last night's Eli Manning-led, M.I.A. bird-bombing Super Bowl. And the last is being proven the morning after.
In a Super Bowl ad year with no real breakout hits, you'd have to say the big winner was the old standby of pets and babies.
Real-time reaction: The Super Bowl ads live-blog
Doritos' "Slingshot Baby" and "Man's Best Friend" commercials are topping a lot of recap rankings so far, as are Bud Light's "Weego" ad and Volkswagen's "The Dog Strikes Back." Pretty transparent four-legged theme going on there.
On USA Today's annual "Ad Meter," the two Doritos ads and "Weego" top the list followed closely by the Vanessa Williams-voiced "not naked M&M" ad and then, you got it, two others with dogs: Skechers' speedy pug and the Volkswagen spot.
Among the ads scoring well the morning after, but not starring dogs or babies: Kia's Motley Crue-soundtracked "dream" ad, Audi's vampire-killing headlights and Clint Eastwood's Chrysler ad, in which the gravel-voiced icon tells us "this country can’t be knocked out with one punch. We get right back up again -- and when we do the world’s going to hear the roar of our engines."
Of course as the New England Patriots know very well, all Super Bowls have losers. And in the big money world of game-day commercials, the largest flops so far seem to be the creepy-but-not-'funny creepy' Cars.com ad, Bridgestone's two efforts and anything involving GoDaddy.com. Yawn.
So what'd we miss? Which commercials do you think were $3.5 million well spent? And which were total wastes? Leave your comments below and let us know!
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